Regan Koch and Alan Latham in the essay “How to Think About Cities” describe cities as “astonishing places, humanity’s greatest achievements facilitating all sorts of freedoms.” They are perceived as the sites of opportunity and equality blurring social boundaries, but the fact remains that cities are also an array of contradictions, inequities, engines of greed, segregation, and exclusion. Bengaluru, once Bangalore and Bendakaluru, is a megapolis, a conglomeration of people, and a cluster of many signifiers. It is a city, or multiple cities within it or an administrative cluster consisting of multiple villages.

Spaces as Warf and Arias argue, matter, not for the self-evident reason that everything occurs in space, but because where events unfold is integral to how they take shape. Space is not simply a passive reflection of social and cultural trends, but an active participant, it is constitutive as well as representative. Universities, along with the pursuit of knowledge and truth, should also bring to fruition their responsibility towards society. Through transformational academic and extracurricular activities, universities should nurture their immediate spaces into sustainable, inclusive, safe, and resilient communities. Sustainability, having its roots in social, economic, and environmental justice believes in improving the quality of life, “without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

m.i.l.a.p. 2023 – “In Conversation with Bengaluru: Spaces, Intersections, Transitions, and Imaginaries” (SITI) hopes to bring together a multitude of voices; voices of educators, poets, critics, artists, activists, filmmakers, citizens, and theatre personalities. Through the quartet, Spaces, Intersections, Transitions, and Imaginaries, we hope to contest the structures of meanings and to engage in critical and reflexive discussions that govern the given social, economic, environmental, cultural, and digital contours of the city, Namma Bengaluru.

• Masterclasses
• Panel Discussions
• Workshops
• Book Exhibitions
• Film Screenings
• Art/ Poetry Installations
• Performances
• Pratibimba Short Film Festival